Working It (16 page)

Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:

Are you okay?

I respond immediately, my fingers tapping like mad. This is my best friend’s moment to shine and I don’t want to steal her sunshine with my gloomy musings.

Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:

I am fine. Tell me about your über-fab assignment.

Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:

Can’t. It’s top secret. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you. Gotta go.
Bisous
.

I am still in bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying to unravel the mystery of Vivia’s top secret mission, when Laney knocks on the door connecting our rooms.

“
Entrez
.”

The door slides open and Laney walks into my room, clad in fuzzy pajamas with feet and carrying two steaming mugs. The scent of coffee tickles my nose before she puts the mugs on my nightstand and plops down at the end of my bed. I scoot to a seated position.

“Yikes!” She waves her hands in front of her as if conducting an invisible orchestra. “What is all of that about?”

“What?”

I quickly run my fingers through my hair, but I don’t feel any snarls or nests.

“Your aura,” she says. “It’s, like, all gray and green.”

I grab one of the mugs from the nightstand and act nonchalant even though her uncanny ability to read my moods kinda freaks me out. “Am I to decipher from your tone that my aura is bad.”

“Bad.” She tilts her head and her thick fringy bangs part to one side. “You must be dwelling in the negative space this morning—the place where bitterness, jealousy, self-defeat, and depression reside. What’s up with that?”

“So gray and green are bad colors?” I ask, purposely ignoring her question.

“Oh, no! Green can be a good aura, symbolizing peace and healing, but when in combination with other colors, like brown and gray, it indicates a totes neg energy.” She narrows her gaze. “So what’s up with that?”

I sigh. “It’s nothing, really.”

“I disagree. It’s definitely something.”

I take a sip of the scalding coffee, curse when the liquid burns my lip, and put the mug back down on my nightstand. Then, I grab my iPhone, open the texting screen, and hand it to Laney.

Laney’s eyes dart back and forth as she reads the text exchange. I hold my breath and wait for her to finish reading.

“Ah,” she says, handing the phone back to me. “I see.”

“You do?”

Laney nods. “Gray is sadness, green is jealousy, and that teeny bit of pink I see around your chest is friendship. You’re jealous of Vivia and that makes you sad.”

“
Incroyable!
” I gasp. “How do you do that?”

Laney shrugs. “It’s a gift.”

We sit in my room, the purplish light of a winking sunrise streaming in through my window, and say nothing. Laney must think I am the worst kind of person, a jealous, petty, and shrouded-in-gray-aura kind of friend. I want to grab her hand and pledge my burgeoning loyalty to her. I want to tell her that I am not always jealous and swathed in ugly auras. Because, even though we have only known each other a few days, I really like Laney.

“You can go if you want,” I say, dropping my chin to my chest. “I’ll be fine.”

“Let’s both go,” she says, hopping up.

“Where?”

“Let’s get dressed and walk into town. Change your scene, change your aura, that’s what I always say.”

An hour later, we are walking down Halibut Point Road when Laney grabs my hand and gives it a quick squeeze.

“What was that for?”

“It’s okay, you know?”

“What’s okay?”

She stops walking and looks at me over the tops of her thick plastic glasses. “It’s okay that you feel jealous of Vivia. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person, Fanny.”

I stop walking too, and turn to look at her. “It doesn’t?”

She shakes her head. “Nope, it doesn’t.”

“So you aren’t horrified by my hideous gray-green aura?”

Laney laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous! Your aura was muddled gray, green, pink, and some white.”

“So.”

“So?” Her glasses slide down her nose and she shoves them back up with her gloved finger. “Don’t you see? Muddled auras indicate growth and change and conflict.”

“Great, so I am a muddled, conflicted mess.”

“We’re all muddled, conflicted messes, Fanny. That’s what makes us human.” She takes a deep breath, holds it in her lungs, and then exhales slowly. Her warm breath creates a wispy ghost of a cloud that hangs in the air between us. “You are jealous of Vivia, but you feel horrible about it. That tells me this is a transient feeling, something you are working hard to conquer. Everyone feels jealous; it’s what is done after that spark of jealousy that really matters. So what are you going to do?”

She starts walking again before I’ve answered. I fall in step beside her, turning her question over and over in my mind. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

“Oo!” Laney stops walking and points at a store window. Behind the glass, arranged appealingly, stand large apothecary jars filled with candy. “Look at all of those yummies!”

We open the door and a mélange of sugary, chocolatey, fruity aromas assails us.

“Welcome to Moose Balls!” A jolly apple-shaped woman carrying a silver platter laden with tiny pouches filled, presumably, with candy ambles up to us. “Would you like to try Sitka’s world famous Nut Sacks?”

I practically choke on my own saliva. Did she just say what I think she said?

“Here,” she says, thrusting the tray at us. “Once you put one of our nut sacks in your mouth, you will be ruined for life. I’m Betty, by the way.”

Laney snatches one of the bags off the platter, opens it, pulls out an oval shaped piece of chocolate, and pops it into her mouth, closing her eyes and groaning as if in ecstasy. She pops two more candies into her mouth.

“These are really good,” she mumbles, her cheeks as fat as a chipmunk’s. “Is it hazelnut?”

Apple-Bottomed Betty grins. “Our nut sacks are made using several different nuts. We grind them fine, gently fold them into a ganache, roll them into balls, and cover them in dark chocolate.”

I tentatively open a sack and put one of the nut balls in my mouth. The dark chocolate quickly melts away, leaving a nutty, crunchy soft ball on my tongue.

“Here,” Betty says, lifting the lid off an apothecary jar filled with more chocolate balls. “You have to try our Moose Balls. They’re lingonberry-flavored malted milk covered in dark chocolate.”

Laney plunges her hand in the jar and pulls out two quarter-sized chocolate balls. She hands me one and pops the other into her mouth.

“And why do you call them Moose Balls?” I ask.

“Moose eat lingonberries,” Betty says, as if the answer were obvious. “They’re considered a super-fruit. High in antioxidants.”

“Sweet!” Laney nudges me in the ribs with her elbow. “You know what that means, don’t cha, Fanny? We can reduce our risk of getting major diseases just by eating these chocolatey balls of goodness.”

“A moose ball a day keeps Alzheimer’s away.” Betty grins and pats her rotund belly. “That’s my theory, anyway.”

I look at Betty’s quivery turkey wattle and jiggly pink jowls. If I am ever her size, I hope I have Alzheimer’s. I would hate to be obese and still have all of my mental faculties. Who wants to wake up every day remembering they were once thin and fit? A skinny person trapped in a fat suit.
Non, merci.

Betty’s smile slips a little, and my cheeks flush with guilty heat. I pop the moose ball in my mouth and pray the jiggly, jocular candy pusher didn’t read my thoughts. I am not proud of it, but sometimes I can be superficial and severely critical. All of this time, I thought I was discerning, urbane, and witty. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I am just a
salope
. Who am I to judge Betty so harshly? Just because she has a higher BMI than I do?

“These are very good,” I say, swallowing the last bit of crunchy, creamy chocolate. “The tartness of the berries contrasts nicely with the sweet chocolate.”

“I agree!” Laney chimes in. “Lingonberries taste like cranberries, don’t they?”

“They’re called the low-bush cranberry,” Betty says. “A wide variety of wild berries grow on the hills and in the fields around Sitka. Salmonberries, crowberries, cloudberries, blueberries. If you’re ever in town in August, you should go berry picking.”

“We’ll be here in August!” Laney declares. “We are working at a teaching facility up the road.”

“You’re teachers? How wonderful!” Betty says. “What do you teach?”

“I teach art, and Fanny teaches fashion merchandising and design.”

“Fashion?” Betty cries. “Have you been to my sister’s store yet? Make Knit Work?”

“No.”

“Oo, you must go. All of her garments are made by local craftsmen.” Betty ambles behind the counter, opens a drawer, pulls out a business card, and hands it to me. “Make Knit Work has been mentioned in the Best of Alaska guide for five years running.”

I envision a shop full of hideous Christmas sweaters, misshapen hats, and ridiculous tea cozies. Nonetheless, I thank Betty and slip the card into my pocket.

Laney buys a pound of moose balls and a cellophane bag filled with salmonberry licorice nibs. I wait for Betty to count out Laney’s change before making a move for the door.

“Whoa, sister!” Laney cries, dropping her coins into a plastic frog-shaped coin purse. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning around. “I thought you were done.”

“I’m done, but you’re not.” She adjusts her panda hat. “You can’t leave here without buying some candy. It would be, like, sacrilegious.”

I am about to tell Laney that I don’t need the hollow calories when she accurately reads my thoughts. Her mind-reading, aura-analyzing abilities are beginning to creep me out.

“And don’t you even think about rattling off the caloric value of a malted milk ball. Seriously? A single ball can’t be more than forty, fifty calories.”

“Twenty-five,” Betty interjects.

“Thank you, Betty!” Laney grins. “Twenty-five calories? That ain’t nothing, Fanny! Now get your French fry-thin ass over here and buy some candy before we body slam you to the ground and force feed you moose balls until you reach your healthy body weight.”

“I’ll take two nut sacks,” I say, handing Betty a ten dollar bill. “Thank you.”

Could you tell me where to find Humpy’s? I’ll take two nut sacks.
What in the hell? I’ve been in Alaska less than a week, and already I’ve uttered two sentences I never thought I would utter.

Nuts and balls in hand, we head out of the store and up Halibut Point Road toward Sitka’s answer to all that is fashion, Make Knit Work.

We are walking by a wooden pole covered with advertisements when I notice one that might interest Laney.

“Laney, look.” I point to the colorful advert. “Ernie D’s Old Time Saloon is hosting an open mic night next month.”

“So?”

“So? You should go.”

Laney grimaces.

“What? Why the grimace?”

She shrugs and keeps walking. I hurry to catch up.

“What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your aura.” I wave my hands in front of me, mimicking what she did in my bedroom earlier. “It’s all beige.”

Laney snorts. “Beige?”

“Yeah,” I say, doubling my step to keep up with her. “Beige is boring, conservative, and just…blah. Why are you being so blah?”

“I am not blah.”

“So you’ll perform at the open mic night?”

“I don’t see why I would.”

“Because you have a degree in music, performed in a band, and most certainly possess wicked rhyming skills.”

Laney chuckles, but it is one of those humorless, wry chuckles. “My parents would disagree.”

“What do you mean?”

“My parents hated my band. They thought it was a ‘prepubescent diversion’ that kept me from ‘pursuing fiscally responsible employment.’”

“Harsh.”

“Tell me about it.” She slows her pace and looks over at me. “You know what really sucks?”

I shake my head.

“They never even came to hear us play.”

“Wait a minute.” I grab her arm and force her to stop walking. “Are you telling me you have given up something you love because your parents didn’t feel it was worthwhile? And they made that decision without ever finding out if you had any real talent?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. That’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Sad.”

“My parents mean well. They’re afraid I will end up on a street corner, playing songs for tourists who toss change into my guitar case.”

We start walking again. What Laney just told me reminds me of someone else I know, someone I love, who tried so hard to please others she lost herself in the process.

“You remind me of Vivian.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Not entirely.”

I tell Laney about Vivia pre-Luc. The Vivia who wanted to please others so desperately that she compromised her wishes, denied her desires, and altered herself to conform to other’s standards. Laney listens without interrupting.

“Nathan, Vivian’s fiancé, didn’t like for her to read romance novels, so she read them in secret. He didn’t like the music she listened to, the clothes she wore, the movies she watched, so she changed her attire, started drinking wine instead of margaritas, and started listening to Michael Bublé instead of the rock bands she preferred.” I take a deep breath. “Vivian has always had a big, bold, beautiful personality, but she didn’t believe in herself. She didn’t see the value in her uniqueness. She let less original people tell her who to be, how to act, what to think.”

“Was she happy?”

“She thought she was, but she wasn’t. Not really.”

Laney takes a deep, jagged breath, and I realize she is on the verge of tears. My words have made an impact.

“Your personality is as bold and beautiful as Vivian’s. Don’t let others force you into some boring beige mold. Be you, bold and colorful Laney.”

“Thank you, Fanny.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Truly.”

“Does that mean you’ll perform at Ernie D’s?”

“I’ll think about it.”

We continue our stroll down Halibut Point Road, stopping to read a wooden sign posted beside a small lake.